On what was most definitely the hottest night Montreal has seen in a long time,played a spectacular show at Cabaret La Tulipe while drenched in sweat and wearing what would quickly become a see-through dress. Returning to the city a little less than two months after her latest local show, Wainwright pulled off a strong set composed of almost every song she has ever recorded, in addition to many covers of classic folk and jazz songs.

This is one intense album. Local band Despised Icon’s latest album, The Healing Process, is some of the most brutal music to come out of the city since Cryptopsy. Come to think of it, the two bands have several things in common: both are from Montreal, both are signed to Century Media, and both manage to keep their sound from becoming mindless, mind-numbing brutality by injecting a high degree of technical skill into their music. The similarities end there, however.

Jo Ann Daugherty's debut album Range of Motion is a stunning surprise from a tiny jazz label out of Chicago called BluJazz. Chicago once was, and still is, one hell of a jazz town. The Chicago scene is one of the few old bastions of jazz still thriving in North America. From venerable elders like Von Freeman to upstarts like young Ms. Daugherty here, the jazz currently coming out of Chicago is well worth checking out.